I bought
Wrecker for two reasons:
- I already have Thunderball and Piledriver and Wrecker is their leader. Good planning, Hasbro.
- He was listed on Amazon for the completely sane price of $14.99 (with free Prime shipping).
Well,
the fact that he’s purple and green appealed to me as well, but did
not influence my decision much.
I’m
sorry if this has all been confusing. That’s just how collecting
Marvel Legends is.
So after
I had Thunderball and Piledriver I decided I should probably look
them up. I did and read the story of the Wrecking Crew and their
leader, Wrecker, who has an enchanted crowbar. This is all very
silly, but not as silly as The Cutting Crew.
Later I
saw the Wrecking Crew on Avengers:
Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
As with most things on that show, they were handled quite well and
came across as a genuine threat.
FIRST
GLANCE
Guess
who’s got warpy-bendy package legs? Wrecker does! This is a very
large figure – dwarfing most of the standard 6” Legends and even
looming over the Masters of the Universe Classics that I haven’t
put away yet.
PACKAGING
I like
the Marvel Legends blister card. Not as much as the new Legends
packaging (reviews coming soon because I lucked out and got a bunch
of the Cap figures and one of the Spideys at Target for fifteen bucks
each before the price hike), but it’s good, comic booky stuff. I
like the graphics and the ease of opening.
As you
can see from the card art, Bulldozer is the other version that Hasbro
will never release, which is odd because he’s the one down below in
the “Collect ‘Em All” portion. It’s a shame because he’s
the final member of the team.
And way
to neuter these guys, Hasbro. “Wrong-Doers”? That sounds like a
bunch of juveniles that steal candy from Eckerd and knock over the
magazine spinner on the way out. Is “Evil-Doers” politically
incorrect or something now? Did I miss a memo?
LOOKS
Wrecker
has a very angry head. Like all Marvel Legends, this is a very
distinctive face sculpt.
Before I
get any further I want to address all of the odd textures that show
up on some of the Marvel Legends, particularly the larger figures.
What the
heck is up with this? The first One I really noticed it on was Toy
Biz’s Bishop figure. The whole figure was covered with unsightly
ridges and lines, much like Wrecker’s head and chest. To this day I
don’t understand that decision. Several Marvel Legends have ugly
and unnecessary texturing that just make them look like poorly done
bootleg toys. I don’t get it.
As you
might guess, I am not happy with the textures on Wrecker’s head and
chest. Especially since the rest of the figure doesn’t have this
mess going on. The paint on the head is solid. The eyes are centered
and the mouth is particularly well done. Wrecker’s teeth are an
unsightly yellow – appropriate for a wrong-doer, I suppose – and
the flesh color around them is placed well.
Proportionally
Wrecker is well done. He’s thick and brutish and looks
intimidating. His gloves, boots, and belt provide a great contrast to
the green suit and the bit of lime green detailing on the jacket
looks nice. It’s a very simple but effective character design,
especially with the traditional purple and green Bad Guy colors.
The belt
is a separately sculpted piece that actually looks a bit like
yesterdays’ Batman utility belt. I’m not sure what Wrecker keeps
in his little capsules. Steroids, maybe?
I’m
happy with the paint on this figure. I think it was an interesting
decision to leave the green parts solid and put a blue wash on the
purple parts. It creates even more contrast and gives Wrecker a
little more character. All of the paint is well done. No blotchy or
spattered bits.
ACCESSORIES
Wrecker
comes with a big-ass enchanted crowbar and Rocket Raccoon’s head
and gun.
The
crowbar is great. Like Wrecker, it’s simple but good. It’s made
of a heavy plastic rather than rubber and feels very solid. The shape
is great and the sculpt features a ton of pitting and a paint job
that highlights it. It fits perfectly into Wrecker’s hand and stays
put.
FUN
Wrecker
has great articulation and balance for a big guy. Sometimes a larger
figure will have restricted joints, but Wrecker does pretty well. He
can achieve a pretty big number of poses and looks great menacing
smaller figures.
I had
fun messing around with this guy for a while. The design honestly
looks kind of plain, but the colors are striking and his mask is
different from pretty much any other Marvel character. And he has a
magic crowbar. How could that not be fun?
OVERALL
Out of
all the guys in the Wrecking Crew, Wrecker is the one I would have
been most likely to buy without the enticement of a build-a-figure
piece. I can imagine walking through Target (I say Target because I
am still buying most of my toys there), seeing this guy (for fifteen
bucks) and just picking him up for the heck of it. But probably only
if I had been in a multi-week dry spell where I hadn’t been able to
find any cool new stuff that I actually wanted. That’s always when
I end up buying one-off figures or something from a line I don’t
normally collect.
As a
matter of fact, I came dangerously close to spending seventy bucks on
one of those swanky Japanese Godzilla figures with, like, twenty
different words in the product title – Bandai Tamashi Nations SH
MonsterArts Godzilla 2000 Millennium Edition Godzilla figure. I
really
wanted that thing, but the day before it was scheduled to ship from
Amazon I came to my sense and realized I didn’t need to be spending
that much on a 6” scale figure, no matter how rad it looked.
Anyway,
Wrecker is by no means a must-have figure and isn’t even a villain
I had heard of until a couple of years ago. But he looks pretty great
aside from all the stupid texturing on his head and torso, which
isn’t that big of a deal, but frustrates me because I don’t
understand it. The bottom line is that if you want Wrecker in this
scale, this is it. He’s never going to be any better.
I’ve
seen Wrecker quite a few times in brick and mortar stores since I
bought mine. He’s also available on Amazon for that fifteen bucks
pretty frequently if you keep an eye out.
4
out of 5
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